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Thursday, January 28, 2016

Manu, the author of Manusmrithi has been the most
maligned sage of the Hindu fold ever since the foreigners started dabbling with
ancient Indian texts, as the ‘master-mind’ of the caste system and promoter of
Brahmin superiority. At a time when this view has gained ‘universal’
acceptance, here comes a genetic study on Indian population that exonerates Manu
of his ‘wrong doing’, as the study has sniffed this evil of caste only from
1500 years before present! Manu is certainly an old timer, much older than 500
CE – a fact I believe the Manu-baiters and Brahmin haters would agree with.
Until 1500 years ago, there was no restriction on inter-caste marriages
according to this study. Marrying within one’s own clan or endogamy thereby
indicating a strict adherence to caste consciousness was noticed only 70 generations
ago or from 1500 years ago, says this study.

So this proves that though Manu had classified people
into 4 groups or rather ‘castes’ and further ‘created’ many ‘castes’ that arise
out of inter mix of these castes, no rigid structure of castes was noticed
until recently that is, until 500 CE. Instead of recognising this vital fact,
the authors of the study insert a vicious idea that Vedic
Brahmanism has infused this caste structure 1500 years ago thanks to the ‘ardent
Gupta Rulers’ who enforced strict Hindu laws! What a sweeping statement
by them! An idea which was given by an undated Manu had not thrived for all
these millennia, but suddenly made its presence by the strict Hindu rulers
favouring Brahmanic order. Were there not enough “Hindu” rulers until then to
enforce the caste system of Vedic Brahmanism? How could the authors make such a
claim without giving thought to other possibilities such as economic and
political reasons?

The time period of 1500 years BP coincided with a lot
of social disturbances, change of power equations and movement of people from one
part to another. Even as early as Silappadhikaram times (in the 1st
century CE), Satakarani sent 96 sects of people
to Cheran land. There is inscriptional evidence of 96 sects of people in Kongu
regions of Tamilnadu. There had been Idangai (Vamachara)
and Valangai (Dakshinachara) conflicts for long
which was noticed until the British period. These were people based and not promoted
by kings or Brahmanic orders. Marriages were discouraged between these sects
though they may be of same caste. The causes cannot be traced to Manu or Vedic
Brahmanism of Guptas or Dharma satsras. This particular conflict between
Idangai and Valangai went to the extent of destroying each other’s temples and
denying entry to others into their temples. This was characterised as casteist tendencies
of caste Hindus perpetrated against Dalits in the last century. But a deeper
analysis of the genesis into the past shows Idangai – Valangai conflict.

This is just one case I have quoted here. Like this
there are different cases having different causes for the formation of rigid
tendencies among castes in the last 1000 plus years. While so much has to be
probed in the social set up of the people to know why strict adherence to caste
(as seen from endogamous tendency in the genetic study) developed after 500 CE,
putting the onus on Gupta- promoted Brahmanic rules in a ‘genetic study’ is
preposterous.

A group of researchers has identified exactly when
Indians stopped intermarrying.

Over 1,500 years ago, the Gupta emperors ruled
large parts of India. They helped consolidate the nation, but they also
popularized India's caste system, making it socially unacceptable for
people to marry outside their castes. Now, a new analysis of genetic variation
among contemporary Indians has revealed that this social shift left a distinctive
genetic signature behind.

A group of researchers in India conducted this
analysis by comparing the genomes of hundreds of Indians from throughout the
country. As they write in a paper published today in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Science, samples came from "367 unrelated
individuals drawn from 18 mainland and two island (Andaman and Nicobar Islands)
populations selected to represent geographic, linguistic, and ethnic
diversities." Previous studies had suggested that today's Indians came from
two ancestral populations, but the new analysis revealed four distinct
"haplotypes," or bundles of genetic elements that travel through
generations in a package. People with the same haplotypes likely came from the
same ancestral groups. The researchers also found a fifth haplotype among
people of the Andaman archipelago.

Careful examination of the variations between these
haplotypes, compared with haplotypes of other people throughout the world,
revealed that India's ancient populations probably came first from Africa.
Later waves of settlement came from people who shared genetic similarities with
populations in South Central Asia and East Asia. These groups remained
genetically distinct, and the linguistic history of India suggests they spoke
languages with dramatically different origins. Nevertheless, it appears there
was a good deal of intermarriage, which shows up in genomes of people who
possess genetic sequences typical of two or more haplotypes.

But then there is a sea change about 1,500 years ago.
At that time, the researchers note:

The reign of the ardent Gupta rulers, known as the
age of Vedic Brahminism, was marked by strictures laid down in Dharmasastra—the
ancient compendium of moral laws and principles for religious duty and
righteous conduct to be followed by a Hindu—and enforced through the powerful
state machinery of a developing political economy.

Especially among the upper castes, endogamy was the
only legal option. People had to marry within their castes. And suddenly, we no
longer see signs of intermixing between different groups. The researchers
were able to measure exactly when endogamy became the rule of the land by
looking at subtle shifts in haplotype sequences. With each generation, these
sequences are cut into smaller pieces via recombination between chromosomes.

The researchers report there is a startlingly sudden
shift where genetic mixing seems to stop. If a person has genetic
material from two haplotypes—let's call them Hap1 and Hap2—a shift to endogamy
causes far more recombination events in Hap1 than in Hap2. That's
because future generations stop intermarrying with people from the
Hap1 haplotype, yet they keep getting new copies of the Hap2 haplotype.
This keeps Hap2 intact while recombination constantly breaks up the Hap1s.

Using a common system for extrapolating generations
from genetic recombination, the researchers estimated "all upper-caste
populations, except [one] from Northeast India, started to practice endogamy
about 70 generations ago... This time estimate belongs to the latter half of
the period when the Gupta emperors ruled large tracts of India (Gupta Empire,
319–550 CE)." This genetic shift was most marked among the upper castes
who spoke Indo-European languages. Other groups appeared to have stopped
intermarrying much later.

By identifying five ancestral populations among
contemporary Indians, the researchers have revealed that Indians today are
more genetically diverse than we've realized. But they have also shown
that social shifts can dramatically affect a nation's genomes. The caste
system has consequences that affect people all the way down to their DNA.

1 comment:

yesterday i read this post on ars and just thought what an absurd thing!! and to read on the comments.. omg, i couldn't stand the sight. even though i don't know the amazing details you shared, even out of a rational thinking, i couldn't see their point! but thanks to you for showing a counter :)